It's not uncommon for rivals to bash one another, so Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page took a couple of jabs at Facebook and Apple in a recent interview.

In an interview with Wired, Page discussed how he wants Google to come up with some "moon shots," or far-out ideas such as the company's self-driving vehicles that recently achieved 30,000 accident-free miles.

However, Page also took the opportunity to throw a few insults at rivals Facebook and Apple. Google's social network, Google+, has been working to gain the amount of users that Facebook has while Google's Android operating system competes with Apple's iOS.

While Page recognizes that Facebook is a heavyweight in the social arena, he said, "They're also doing a really bad job on their products … we're actually doing something different [from Facebook]. I think it's outrageous to say that there's only space for one company in these areas."

Page may be a little sore that Google, which launched in 2011, hasn't quite lived up to the hype of it potentially being a Facebook rival. There are currently 500 million registered users on Google+ and only about 125 million are active monthly (compared to Facebook's one billion monthly active users as of October 2012).

Rather than become a Facebook rival, though, it looks more like Google+ has become a product incorporated into Google's search.

In November of last year, Google's Vice President of Product Bradley Horowitz spoke with Business Insider about Google+, also taking a jab at Facebook. Specifically, he targeted the social network's use of advertisements, where they're forced into people's news feeds. He even went as far as comparing Facebook ads to a guy with a sandwich board popping in between a father and his daughter during an important conversation.

"We don't have to make next week's payroll by jamming ads at users," said Horowitz.

In the recent Wired interview, Page also had something to say about Apple's product practices. While Apple is another huge player in the mobile space, Page thinks its products are limited.

"You know, we always have these debates: we have all this money, we have all these people, why aren't we doing more stuff?" said Page. "You may say that Apple only does a very, very small number of things, and that's working pretty well for them. But I find that unsatisfying."

Earlier this week, it was reported that Google's Nexus 7 tablet market share was greater in Japan than Apple's iPad. Market research firm BCN conducted a survey in Japan last December, and out of 2,400 consumer electronics stores in Japan, the iPad had 40.1 percent of the market while Google's Nexus 7 claimed 44.4 percent.

"The reason Google got into the mobile space is because they could see (actually they were told) that user time was fast migrating from desktops onto mobile devices......So the answer is to slap together an OS based on what they knew at the time"

True. And early versions of Android sucked until Android 4. But now it's hands down the best mobile OS available with the most features and most hardware options supported. Thus the reason we like it. It's not about Google or anything they do, or did. Its about getting the best product you can get.

If you want hardware options that's a fair claim but the thing that Android pushers really fail to appreciate is that these "Features" that are boasted about are largely irrelevant and most people just do not care.

Android is not selling like hot-cakes because of these features but merely because the price is right and it's way better than the phones most people had before (usually some horrible clunky Nokia or Motorola).

Don't kid yourself that most people who own Android phones (and probably iPhones and anything else modern) give a crap about niche features. They just want the thing to connect to the internet and post crud on Facebook, Twitter etc. and to be able to fire off text messages and the odd phonecall. They want to take a photograph of a bunch of crap and have it on some social media website in seconds for other people not to give a crap about.

The vocal minority on tech-sites who actually care about this stuff are barely spit in the ocean.

The other camp (me) are willing to sacrifice features that they will not use for something that has thus far proven to be utterly reliable without the bad experiences of phones they have owned in the past. No lockups, no battery pulls or hard resets, no dicking around for hours trying to get Wi-Fi to work. Flawless integration with their desktop and laptop machines.

...and a good excuse not to be everybody elses free technical support anymore.

The other gimmicks you can keep, wouldn't care to use them if I had access.

"these "Features" that are boasted about are largely irrelevant and most people just do not car"

I dont care what "most" people do. Most people are clueless with tech. I care about getting the best phone available, and these days that is on Android, by a large margin.

"The other camp (me) are willing to sacrifice features that they will not use for something that has thus far proven to be utterly reliable without the bad experiences of phones they have owned in the past. No lockups, no battery pulls or hard resets, no dicking around for hours trying to get Wi-Fi to work. Flawless integration with their desktop and laptop machines."

Fair enough if referring to Android through 2011. Android 2.x sucked and many makers had bead implementations that made it worse. However, no-one is buying a phone in 2011, at this point due to the laws of science we are all going to be buying phones in 2013 at the earliest. Now, Android has matured and caught up and doesn't have those issues. Put simply, it has the best OS and the best hardware with the most options. If you like a small phone with a great GPU and none of the other great features the iPhone is missing, then the iPhone is a great phone. What it does, it does do well. Its strong GPU is only good for one thing, gaming... And to be gaming on a tiny screen like that is really a waste to me. That and when I have time to game, I use my PC or PS3, not a phone. None of them are any good compared to PC and consoles.

Agreed some of features are useless for alot of people, but SD card is HUGE and there is no excuse to not support it for Apple. We keep hearing that the device size is more important, but that is just ridiculous. The iPhone's bezel is huge. It could easily fit 4 sd card slots.

Whatever though. Each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses. PErsonally, I wont ever but anything below 1920x1080 again. Not phone, tablet, laptop or otherwise. Apple has no products that interest me right now... That would change with an iPad mini with retina. bump up the res and SOC and that thing is really nice.

I'm holding my breath for the phone with Windows 8 on it... and no I don't mean the mobile version. Windows 8 reminds me more of Linux than ever before: fast, a little tacky, and very scalable (able to run on old or new hardware quickly). Android is the best mobile app, but full W8 on a phone would be an improvement over Android.

messele,completely agree with you. i try to SSH and VNC on my iPad but its really just a toy when you are trying to do something serious. Android has been a disaster from my perspective and I wish Google would have either built their own system from scratch or gotten rid of the Java VM on the android they purchased.

In my perspective Android is a budget OS crammed with mediocre features and large performance handicap (just a fraction of the code runs natively). Google implements technologies like WebKit, java, and linux in a nice package but they are still largely a search service company.

Their software is pretty lame, in my opinion. Their philosophy is omnipresence and that is achieved through competitive pricing, open platforms, and attractive feature sets. As a google search and translation services fan, I am pretty disappointed with their OS and applications. I hope to see a make over for google. Currently, they appear as a junk drawer of products and features to me.

You are absolutely right in 2011. Unfortunately it's 2 years later now and Android hasn't just caught up with IOS, it has dramatically surpassed it. Update your perspective to the modern 5 inch 1920x1080 Androids running Jelly Bean.